By Julia Skinner
Once again, Diah was breaking into her own palace. She huffed, edging along the shadowed side of her castle. How many times had she done this? Seven? Ten? She was losing count.
She paused and ran her hands along the cold stone wall until she found the deep grooves that had been cut precisely for this reason. There were a dozen seemingly random changes she had made to the palace over her four years of queenship, all to help her sneak back in should a circumstance like this ever occur. Which… seemed to happen a lot. Who knew?
Diah hooked her fingers into the grooves and slowly pulled herself up the wall toward her old bedroom window—the one with the latch she’d broken as a kid. After hauling herself onto the sill, she pushed the window open. Quietly, she dropped to the room’s carpeted floor.
This room had been her safe place up until age seventeen when she was crowned Queen of Crythn, the most cursed kingdom in the four desert plains. And now she was going to blow it up.
Diah brushed her fingers along the smooth desk that sat against the wall next to the door. Even though she couldn’t see clearly in the dark, she pictured its varying shades of woody orange. Each line seemed to hold a memory of her beloved childhood pranks or “master” plans… back before her parents were assassinated, and play became a matter of life or death.
Righto, she shook herself, time for the first step of my plan. Which involved knocking out the hall guard. It would probably be Korgen, he was always on patrol right around midnight. He was a fairly okay guy—for a guard who let an enchantress walk up and charm everyone into believing she was the rightful queen.
Diah felt beneath the desk and unhooked a pouch of explosive crystals she’d stashed there years ago. Dumping the crystals on the floor, she pulled a match from her pocket and lit it. These particular crystals took just the right amount of time to ignite, and when they did, they’d create only a little explosion. Nothing like the time she blew up her entire throne to get an extremely frustrating usurper off of it.
Flicking the burning match on top of the crystals, she eased the door open and peeked into the dim hallway. Sure enough, Korgen paced the corridor ahead.
Diah let out a low whistle.
As he spun around, she kicked a loose plank on the wall. It clicked inward, and a single, tiny dart shot out and hit him square in the shoulder. A heartbeat later, the guard thudded to the floor.
“Sorry.” Diah jogged down the hall, passing a huge painting of her bright orange throne—the one she’d turned to ashes. It was the same shade as her now-tattered dress. I miss that chair. She fingered the pouch on her belt.
The explosion went off as she reached the stairs, rattling the walls and filling the night’s silence with a triumphant boom.
“Right on time!” Diah said.
Perfect plans are all about timing.
Now Katrine—the only servant in the entire castle who somehow wasn’t enchanted—would know to get the guards out of the throne room.
Diah reached the bottom of the stairs at the same time as—with a shout—Katrine whisked past, clutching the orange rock that always hung around her neck. All six royal guards chased after her.
Diah shook her head, slipping down the passageway and into the throne room. Once she got her kingdom back, she needed to look into why that girl, of all people, wasn’t under the enchantress’s spell.
A tall woman in a black dress occupied the bland-colored chair that had replaced Diah’s beautiful tangerine throne. On the woman’s right, squashed flowers and broken glass littered the floor.
“Wow, what did Kat do?” Diah said. “Throw a vase at you?”
The enchantress looked up.“You!”
“Me!” Diah jerked the bag from her waist, tossing the bright orange ashes inside onto the imposter.
“What… are you…” The enchantress coughed, waving the ashes out of her face. “… doing?”
“I just want to thank you for an educational few days.” Diah hooked the empty bag back to her belt. “Turns out, the throne I blew up a while back was enchanted to stop people like you from waltzing in and doing what you did.”
The enchantress dusted orange specks off her gown. “And?”
Diah raised her eyebrows and smiled.
For a horror-stricken moment, the enchantress didn’t move, then she stumbled to her feet and muttered a spell, frantically waving her hand. Nothing happened.
The royal guards burst through the wide entrance. They seemed a little dazed. Poor chaps.
“Guards!” Diah pointed to the enchantress. “Arrest her!”
With confused frowns, they moved to obey. Katrine slipped through the doors behind them. The girl had an annoying way of grinning all the time.
The guards dragged the cursing enchantress from the room as Diah sat down on her throne. It wasn’t the most comfortable or beautiful chair, but at least it was hers again.
“Well! That’s that!” She leaned back. “Another perfect plan well executed.”
Katrine, who was still hovering about for some reason, bobbed her head. “I love perfect plans!”
Bother. Diah eyed her. “I do have to ask, Kat, how did you escape the enchantress’s spell? Something to do with that rock of yours?”
The girl fingered the orange rock hanging on a string around her neck. She smiled. “Ah, that. Well you see, when I was younger my parents gave me this Warding Stone, aaaaand told me that one day I was destined to be queen!”
As if on cue, the guards slipped into the room, lining up behind Katrine’s small figure.
“Thank you for getting rid of that pesky enchantress for me.” Katrine grinned. “But I’ll need you to get off my throne now.”
Diah moaned. Not again…
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
ah, the tangled webs being woven….
Such a fun story, Julia! Love the twist! Diah is a really neat character.
What a bad day. It doesn’t pay to get up, on occasion…
Great opening line, creative title, and fun take on “gaining back your throne.”
Poor Diah. Not again!
Ha! I love all the references to the other times she’d had to overthrow usurpers.
You just can’t get good help anymore. Great twist.
Oh goodness. So much is happening, and I love it. Will Diah ever get a break?
Oh gosh XD what a twist at the end! This truly is a cursed kingdom, lol.
Poor Diah. At least she has the skillz to keep getting her throne back.
HA! Wowww. XD No wonder Katrine was grinning.